2008 Centurion Boats at the Glen

The 2008 Centurion Boats at the Glen was the twenty-second race of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season and the second and final road course event of the season. The 90-lap, 220.5 miles (354.9 km) race was held on August 10, 2008 at the historic Watkins Glen International Raceway in the New York namesake village. ESPN carried the race at 1 PM US EDT and MRN along with Sirius Satellite Radio had radio coverage starting at 1:15 PM US EDT.

Pre-Race News

• As this event is being held on a road course, several cars are changing drivers to use road course ringers in place of their regular drivers. Among those expected to run at The Glen:
  • Marcos Ambrose will be in the #21 Ford Fusion for Wood Brothers Racing;
  • Boris Said was to have brought out the #60 No Fear Ford for his self-owned No Fear Racing team, and his "teammate" Brian Simo was to have driven the #34 Ford, usually raced for Front Row Motorsports as a Chevrolet, however with the cancellation of the qualifying due to rain, neither car made the field;
  • Canadian Ron Fellows, who won the previous week's rain-shortened NASCAR Nationwide Series NAPA Auto Parts 200, will drive the #01 Chevy for Dale Earnhardt, Inc.. NASCAR's four-team limit has one exception—a team can run a fifth car in up to seven races in a season for a rookie (or pre-rookie) driver. This exemption would have permitted Regan Smith, the usual driver of the #01 and a Raybestos Rookie contender, to run a fifth (#81) DEI car for his home race; however, it was announced that the #81 car was withdrawn, because Smith had been in 20 races through the Pennsylvania 500.
  • P.J. Jones will be in the #96 Toyota Camry for Hall of Fame Racing, replacing J.J. Yeley, who was released. For the rest of the season starting at Michigan, Brad Coleman will take over.
  • Max Papis will race the #70 Chevrolet for Haas CNC Racing.
• Kyle Petty was planning to return to the Petty Enterprises #45 this week after an absence of nine races - the first due to his daughter's wedding, the next six to be color commentator on TNT, and two following his annual motorcycle charity ride for the Victory Junction Gang camps in North Carolina and Kansas. However, a deal with Boris Said will have him in the car this week.

Qualifying

For the second straight year, qualifying was cancelled due to rain, so the rulebook was used to set the starting field with Kyle Busch on P-1.

Failed to make race as qualifying was cancelled due to rain: Boris Said (#60) and Brian Simo (#34).

Recap

Kyle Busch set a new NASCAR record with his eighth win of the season, his sixteenth in all three major NASCAR series and swept the road course races by winning. A major accident with eight laps remaining led by Michael McDowell and David Gilliland colliding with one another causing a total of nine cars to be in a wreck, delaying the race under a red flag for 45 minutes. Kyle Busch's win also clinched a spot in the 2008 Chase for the Sprint Cup, which includes the top seed.

Results